Brian Gardnerhttps://briangardner.com
Minimalist DesignerMon, 14 Aug 2017 12:02:06 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9-alpha-41249Introducing the Minimalist Pro Themehttps://briangardner.com/minimalist-pro-theme/
https://briangardner.com/minimalist-pro-theme/#respondMon, 23 Jan 2017 14:52:17 +0000https://briangardner.com/?p=10776Last week I published a short piece on Minimalism, explaining the clarity I’ve received over the past few weeks about an area I’m passionate about. I’m very pleased to share that I’ve updated and have released Minimalist Pro—a free theme for the Genesis Framework. This theme was intentionally designed for the minimalist, with an emphasis […]

]]>Last week I published a short piece on Minimalism, explaining the clarity I’ve received over the past few weeks about an area I’m passionate about.

I’m very pleased to share that I’ve updated and have released Minimalist Pro—a free theme for the Genesis Framework. This theme was intentionally designed for the minimalist, with an emphasis on typography and a clutter-free look.

The Minimalist Pro theme for Genesis

It’s been more than two years since I released the original Minimalist theme, and this one includes enough updates to warrant a name change to Minimalist Pro.

Here’s a list of things that have been updated in the theme:

1. New responsive menu JS code.

Thanks to the hard work and perseverance of Calvin Koepke, we recently pushed out updates to a few of our more popular themes at StudioPress. One of those updates was a refactored codebase for our responsive menus in a centralized JavaScript file. This adds better support for accessibility, the ability to combine menus in responsive view, and overall makes the performance of menus better.

2. Update typography and colors.

I love change and keeping up with modern design, so this was an easy decision for me. The serif font that was being used on the Minimalist theme felt outdated and bland, so I took some inspiration from the Infinity Pro theme and replaced it with Cormorant Garamond. Also updated was the accent color and the move to pure black for paragraph text.

3. Include theme customizer for accent color.

Speaking of the theme customizer, this was another thing that was added to the Minimalist Pro theme. Now you can customize the accent color (link hovers, entry title hovers, button hovers) to anything you want, with just a few clicks. Yeah, I thought you’d like that. Thanks WordPress, for making it so easy now!

4. Add support for accessibility and translations.

Like all of the newer themes we are releasing at StudioPress, my free themes have taken big strides in staying current with the latest updates we make. Two of the things that I’ve added to Minimalist Pro are the support for accessibility and a language file for those who want to translate into another language.

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I hope you enjoy the Minimalist Pro theme and can use it for one of your blogs. Feel free to hit me up on Twitter @bgardner to let me know what you think!

]]>https://briangardner.com/minimalist-pro-theme/feed/0“Minimalism” All the Things …https://briangardner.com/minimalism/
https://briangardner.com/minimalism/#respondSat, 21 Jan 2017 13:37:41 +0000https://briangardner.com/?p=10754Well the first of the year has passed, and 2017 marks the 10th anniversary of when I left my desk job and pursued my entrepreneurial journey. Over the past few weeks, I have gained a tremendous amount of clarity about some things, which can be summed up with these words I shared on Twitter: “Embrace […]

I am a designer. I love design. But not just design, I love minimalist design, which makes me a minimalist designer. (thus, the title of this post) And while I think it’s healthy to try new things, I want to live in the space I feel called to.

Part of that calling is the website I created two years ago, No Sidebar. That started out as a passion project for me, and it’s still that—and so much more.

In short, I love minimalism, and so I will live in minimalism as much as I can. So I decided to create, and create minimally I have:

Chasing Slow, Minimalism, and My Gift to You

I recently started reading Erin Loechner’s new book, Chasing Slow (aff. link) I’m not a book reader—in fact, I don’t like to read. But this book, it’s compelling and I simply can’t put it down. And the website? Good lord, it’s pretty.

In other news, and speaking of minimalism, I watched a documentary last week called—wait for it—Minimalism. It’s a film about the important things in life, and features a few of my personal friends. 5 stars, highly recommended by me.

Lastly, I finally updated my About page. Give it a read, because I tell my story and it’s my gift to you—each week I’ll share all that I’ve learned as founder of StudioPress, creator of No Sidebar, and successful WordPress entrepreneur.

]]>https://briangardner.com/minimalism/feed/0The Power of the Open-Source Communityhttps://briangardner.com/open-source-community/
https://briangardner.com/open-source-community/#respondTue, 20 Sep 2016 13:54:09 +0000http://briangardner.com/?p=10452A few weeks ago, Lauren and I spoke with Carrie Dils about open-source. Carrie has been around the Genesis (and WordPress) communities for a number of years, and has given back by contributing, teaching, and speaking. In our interview with her, we cover a number of things — what open-source means, the benefits of an […]

]]>A few weeks ago, Lauren and I spoke with Carrie Dils about open-source. Carrie has been around the Genesis (and WordPress) communities for a number of years, and has given back by contributing, teaching, and speaking.

What is Open-Source Software?

As we were discussing open-source in our conversation, I realized there was a pretty good chance some folks didn’t know what that actually means. After being in the open-source community for nearly 10 years, I sometimes take it for granted. Here’s the definition of open-source software:

“Open-source software is software that can be freely used, changed, and shared in modified or unmodified form by anyone. Open-source software is made by many people and distributed under licenses that comply with the open-source definition.”

Basically, you can inherit the code base of any project and do what you want with it — and this is the big thing — as long as you also then release whatever derivative you do or come up with, with the same license.

The Benefits of an Open-Source Community

We asked Carrie what she thought were the benefits of an open-source community. Here’s what she had to say:

“That’s where the beauty of it comes in. People are giving and taking, and we’re all benefiting from it. You mentioned even sharing code with competitors. We call that ‘co-opetition,’ where we’re going up against each other, but also helping. The hope is that 1+1 really becomes three. A lot of times your competitors are the ones who get too busy and then have to refer work even to you then because they just can’t take it all. It’s really a great system when it’s working properly.”

One of the things we agree on is the give-and-take mentality that typically comes with an open-source community. Carrie shares her thoughts on that:

“One of the things that folks that are new to WordPress, or even new specifically to Genesis, I always encourage them to dive in, start getting involved in the community. The best way to do that is through forums, just answering questions. Even if you’ve been around WordPress one week, then you know more than somebody who’s only been around it one day. You have the knowledge to start contributing back by just helping somebody else.”

The Pros and Cons of Open-Source

Like most things in life, the good comes with the bad, and open-source communities are no different. Carrie explains some of the downfalls:

“This isn’t going to be specific to Genesis, but I see it a lot in Genesis because that’s one of the communities I’m more heavily involved in, but there’s this disparity between … let me just get down to the point. I hope that I’m not going to offend anyone. No names mentioned, but I had a support request come through — and this is not a one-time deal, it’s happened multiple times — where someone is being paid as a web developer or a web designer to deliver a website for a client, and what they’re asking for in support forums is for the work to be done for them.

I realize I’m painting in broad strokes. That’s not everyone. What I would love to see is that, if people are going to take this on professionally, that they actually are professional about it and take the time, invest the time to learn the skills to do that. I think that type of individual can devalue what a lot of people are doing legitimately and well, if that makes sense.”

The open-source community is more of a servant-first mentality, and everything in life, not everything is perfect. And I’ve seen it, and I try to address it and encourage behaviors to change or otherwise. A lot of times the community corrects itself, which is good. I can see what you’re saying, that there are people who have a tendency to come in and take more than they give.

StudioPress FM is designed to help creative entrepreneurs build the foundation of a powerful digital business. Tune in weekly as Lauren and I share our expertise on web design, strategy, and building an online platform.

]]>https://briangardner.com/open-source-community/feed/0How to Make Money Food Blogginghttps://briangardner.com/make-money-food-blogging/
https://briangardner.com/make-money-food-blogging/#respondTue, 13 Sep 2016 14:16:12 +0000http://briangardner.com/?p=10377A few weeks ago, Lauren and I had the pleasure of talking with Shay Bocks at Feast Design Company about food blogging and whether or not you can make money doing it. Listen to the full episode on StudioPress FM. Within the Genesis community, Shay is best known for her Foodie Pro theme, one that […]

Within the Genesis community, Shay is best known for her Foodie Pro theme, one that has continually been the #1 selling theme on StudioPress. She followed that up with a theme called Brunch Pro, and just recently released another one called Cook’d Pro.

In short, Shay is an expert in the food blogging niche, and was the perfect person to interview. On the podcast, we cover a number of great things — the popularity of the Foodie Pro Theme, what makes a successful food blogging brand, and how to make money with a food blog.

The Popularity of the Foodie Pro Theme

I asked Shay about the impact Foodie has had on her life, and she said:

“I was already on the path towards working more with food bloggers. I think I saw where things were headed with this industry, and I wanted to be a part of that. But it was really getting Foodie on StudioPress and opening that up to such a bigger audience and such a wider breadth of online contributors that really kind of set all of this into motion.

I think just being able to have something like Foodie online in a mass setting for all of these newbie food bloggers who are just starting out, who don’t even know yet if they have something to contribute to the online world, but being able to say, “Hey, this is a theme that was built for me, and this is how I can get started.” I think that has been tremendous, at least for the food bloggers I’ve talked to. They have at least a starting point.”

Shay goes onto explain just how easy it is to start a food blog using WordPress, the Genesis Framework, and one of her food blogging themes:

“Once they have that WordPress installed, the Genesis Framework installed, and the Foodie Pro theme installed, they know that now they can just write something, press publish, and worry about the rest later, figure it out later. Foodie is giving them that start, which I think is incredible.”

The Key to a Successful Food Blogging Brand

It’s no secret that food blogging is quite the rage, and has been probably for at least two or three years. I don’t necessarily think it’s in a saturated state, but it’s sort of getting close. Nonetheless it’s still very popular, and people are starting new food blogs every day.

I asked Shay if she could speak to what it takes to start a food blog, and more importantly, how to make money and be successful while doing so.

“I think food blogging may be big, and you’re right — some people may even say it’s an industry that’s getting over-saturated. I actually hope to hear more voices getting into this food conversation. There are so many food blogs out there, but you know why? It’s because of the mom that’s sitting down every Sunday afternoon wondering what she’s going to get into her kids bellies this week, or the millions of people who are suffering with chronic conditions and are looking at their diets to help them tackle the challenges that they’re facing.

There’s so much room in this space because eating is a need that humans will always have. Discovering ways to use food to make life easier, happier, sexier, and even divinely inspired, that’s where food bloggers come in. I don’t think people realize how incredibly influential this industry is.

These bloggers are the ones behind the recipes and magazines that you read, the cookbooks you rely on, on the cooking shows you’re watching, and especially in the recipes that you seek out on Pinterest. Brands notice, too. That’s why so many food bloggers are doing so well online.

In order to really build an influential food blog, you have to have a personal brand. A lot of work goes into building a personal brand. That’s just my take on it. Getting started is easy, but actually making an impact with your blog, that’s not easy. The people who are doing it, they need to be recognized for the work they’re putting into their blogs.”

How to Make Money with a Food Blog

I asked Shay to walk us through some of the typical, and sometimes very lucrative, monetization strategies. Aside from the typical advertising plan, I wanted our listeners to know what other ways they could expect to make money.

“Ads are valuable for blogs that have a ton of traffic, but we’re starting to see food bloggers branch out into other avenues of monetizing, which is really exciting.

You see sites like I Am Baker, where she has a huge partnership with a big brand, McCormick Seasonings, and she’s putting out content left and right. That’s supported by that brand that supports her online business, but it’s also extremely valuable to the people that she’s writing for. Then we have, you mentioned Pinch of Yum and Minimalist Baker. They do make a lot of money on ad revenue because they have the traffic to support it, but they’re also diversified revenue.

They have products of their own. They’re using affiliate links. They’re just tapping into every lucrative avenue they can get their hands on, and it’s working for them, which is wonderful.

Then you have other big hitters like Pioneer Woman. She started as a blogger, and she leveraged her personal brand to put out a cookbook. I think she has her own Food Network show. There are endless possibilities. What I’m looking forward to seeing is even more creative solutions, stuff we haven’t even seen before.”

StudioPress FM is designed to help creative entrepreneurs build the foundation of a powerful digital business. Tune in weekly as Lauren and I share our expertise on web design, strategy, and building an online platform.

]]>https://briangardner.com/make-money-food-blogging/feed/0Customize the Twenty Seven Pro Theme Footerhttps://briangardner.com/twenty-seven-pro-theme-footer/
https://briangardner.com/twenty-seven-pro-theme-footer/#respondTue, 06 Sep 2016 13:10:36 +0000http://briangardner.com/?p=10338Last week I released Twenty Seven Pro, a minimalist theme for lifestyle and food bloggers. I’m please with how well it has been received so far. One of the things I like most about the Twenty Seven Pro theme is the way I designed the footer — I created two sides, separated by a nifty circular […]

]]>https://briangardner.com/twenty-seven-pro-theme-footer/feed/0SEO for Beginnershttps://briangardner.com/seo-for-beginners/
https://briangardner.com/seo-for-beginners/#respondMon, 05 Sep 2016 18:33:55 +0000http://briangardner.com/?p=10313A few weeks ago, Lauren and I had the pleasure of talking with Rebecca Gill at Web Savvy Marketing about SEO for beginners. Listen to it on StudioPress FM. Web Savvy Marketing works alongside bloggers and business to help them use their website as a powerful marketing tool. Their primary goal is to deliver a […]

]]>A few weeks ago, Lauren and I had the pleasure of talking with Rebecca Gill at Web Savvy Marketing about SEO for beginners. Listen to it on StudioPress FM.

Web Savvy Marketing works alongside bloggers and business to help them use their website as a powerful marketing tool. Their primary goal is to deliver a beautiful, search engine friendly website, but their secondary goal is to educate you about design and SEO best practices. In short, they know a thing or two about SEO, which is why we invited her on the show.

On the podcast, we cover a number of great things — what it means to have a holistic approach to SEO, how to avoid risky black hat SEO tactics, and the 3 most important elements of SEO. All of which are great for beginners.

A Holistic Approach to SEO

There are a lot of stereotypes in the SEO world, so we asked Rebecca about that. On her website, she mentions that Web Savvy Marketing has a holistic approach when it comes to SEO. Rebecca explains what that means:

“For us, I’m not going to just do for you. We’re going to take you in the process from start to finish and you’re going to learn along the way. Holistic, to me, is we first start with your target market, we define who that is and who you are selling to, and what are their pain points and what solution you offer. That kind of information. We look at your competitors. You do research.

Unfortunately, a lot of old-school SEO consultants still focus on link building. You have to have the user, the website visitor at the forefront of your objectives and goals to make sure that they’re happy. Because if they’re happy, that makes search engines happy, and search engines will reward you with more traffic.

When I say holistic, it’s a full circle from start to finish. With, again, education along the way, because I want people empowered.”

How to Avoid Risky Black Hat Tactics

We also talked to Rebecca about the difference between white hat SEO and black hat SEO. While these terms go back years in the SEO space, their practices are still around today. As a beginner in the space, it’s tough to understand what constitutes each one.

Rebecca explains white hat SEO in layman’s terms:

“If you break down white hat SEO to this: to be successful in search you have to make the search engines happy. Let’s take Google, for example. What is their goal? Their goal is to make money. They are a for-profit company. They sell ads, they have other products, but that’s their goal.

People come to the search engines, they search for something, they get good results that take them to a good website or blog that answers their question.

That’s white hat. It’s focusing on your visitor. Writing content for the visitor. Making sure that it’s fast, it got great performance, it’s designed well so it’s easier to read and the site flows. Keeping that visitor happy will make the search engines happy, because that visitor will come back to the search engines and use them again.”

The 3 Most Important Elements of SEO

SEO can be overwhelming, especially if you are new to publishing content. Many folks don’t know where to begin, so we asked Rebecca what she thought the 3 most important elements of SEO were.

Here’s what she says, and this is great for beginners:

“My three most important would be keyword research, sitemapping, and then high-quality content. Granted, there is a lot that falls underneath each of those, but those are the buckets. I’ve structured my online course to include them.

You start with basics, then you go to keyword research, the next segment is sitemapping, the next segment is content, and then you have the gravy that is the offsite stuff. If you skip those three blocks you are going to never succeed.”

We asked her to break a few things down for beginners.

“Keyword research is doing a full plan to say, “What is a phrase or multiple phrases that people might search to reach my site or my blog?” What are they searching for, whether it’s their pain points or it’s solutions or it’s people — going through analysis.

You start with a seed list. You generate your seed list. You come up with all of your potential possibilities that you think. Then you look at your competitors and you learn from them. You do things like you look at Google auto-suggest and related searches and you add that. Now you go to keyword tools to see what volumes and what other variations you can have.

Then you look at that and you compare that to your existing site and what your future content may hold. You start mapping one keyword or phrase to a particular piece of content. That’s the sitemapping part.

That part is not a quick process. It takes weeks to do it if you are doing it right, because it’s data, it’s analysis, and it’s research. That’s the part everybody skips. They just go and they jump to content, and they may or may not have a keyword for the content.”

StudioPress FM is designed to help creative entrepreneurs build the foundation of a powerful digital business. Tune in weekly as Lauren Mancke and I share our expertise on web design, strategy, and building an online platform.

]]>https://briangardner.com/seo-for-beginners/feed/0Twenty Seven Pro — A (Free) Lifestyle Themehttps://briangardner.com/twenty-seven-pro/
https://briangardner.com/twenty-seven-pro/#respondThu, 01 Sep 2016 15:14:02 +0000http://briangardner.com/?p=10288It’s no secret that I am a fan of design, and it’s also no secret that I am a fan of minimalism. So I decided to design a minimalist theme for Genesis. I am pleased to announce Twenty Seven Pro — a (FREE) minimalist theme for lifestyle and food bloggers — built on the Genesis […]

]]>https://briangardner.com/twenty-seven-pro/feed/0StudioPress FM — A Podcast for Creative Entrepreneurshttps://briangardner.com/studiopress-fm/
https://briangardner.com/studiopress-fm/#respondTue, 30 Aug 2016 13:36:20 +0000http://briangardner.com/?p=10257On February 17, 2009, a line of business I was operating called Revolution rebranded as StudioPress. This was a move I needed to make at the time because of legal reasons, but it’s one I’ve never regretted. Over the last 7 years, a lot has happened in my life, and with StudioPress. We created the […]

]]>On February 17, 2009, a line of business I was operating called Revolution rebranded as StudioPress. This was a move I needed to make at the time because of legal reasons, but it’s one I’ve never regretted.

Over the last 7 years, a lot has happened in my life, and with StudioPress. We created the Genesis Framework, merged into the company now known as Rainmaker Digital, and have built a community of users close to 200,000 strong.

In short, it’s been an amazing journey, and one I wouldn’t trade in for the world.

A year and a half ago, our company launched Rainmaker FM. We’ve published nearly 1,200 episodes of our various shows, but there was clearly something missing from the network—something that was an obvious fit for our audience.

StudioPress FM is designed to help creative entrepreneurs build the foundation of a powerful digital business. Tune in weekly as Lauren Mancke and I share our expertise on web design, strategy, and building an online platform.

]]>https://briangardner.com/studiopress-fm/feed/0A Simple Solution to Monitor Downloadshttps://briangardner.com/monitor-downloads/
https://briangardner.com/monitor-downloads/#respondWed, 24 Aug 2016 18:37:04 +0000http://briangardner.com/?p=10233The other day I was thinking about the Free Genesis Themes I have made available here on my website—specifically how often they are downloaded. Over the past 10 years of using WordPress, I have had the opportunity to use many plugins that monitor downloads, and to be honest, they’ve been a pain. For the most […]

]]>The other day I was thinking about the Free Genesis Themes I have made available here on my website—specifically how often they are downloaded.

Over the past 10 years of using WordPress, I have had the opportunity to use many plugins that monitor downloads, and to be honest, they’ve been a pain.

For the most part, they are clunky, hard to use and quite frankly, bloated. Granted these plugins were created to do a whole lot more than what I typically am looking for, so I’ll cut them some slack.

Anyway, as I have been playing around with a few theme designs of late, I’m contemplating whether or not I should retire any of the free themes I currently have—Endless, Minimalist, and Mobile First.

In order to gauge the popularity of my themes, I wanted to monitor how many times each are downloaded, so I can easily say which one(s) should go.

My solution? A simple one.

It’s a good thing Nathan Rice created the Simple URLs plugin, which allows you create, manage, and track outbound links from your site. Typically these are affiliate links, but I thought I’d get creative and use the plugin to keep track of how many times each theme is downloaded. Genius, right?

Here’s a screenshot of what my test will look like:

So I created 3 URLs, and entered .zip files in the “Redirect to” field that I had previously linked to for the theme downloads.

]]>https://briangardner.com/monitor-downloads/feed/0The Ultimate Genesis Guidehttps://briangardner.com/ultimate-genesis-guide/
https://briangardner.com/ultimate-genesis-guide/#respondMon, 22 Aug 2016 18:07:23 +0000http://briangardner.com/?p=10155The best thing about the Genesis community is the Genesis community. There are so many folks who have built their online businesses around it, and have entrusted us along the way. A sincere thanks to every one of you. Below is a list of Genesis resources—known as the Ultimate Genesis Guide: Genesis Themes StudioPress Appfinite […]

]]>The best thing about the Genesis community is the Genesis community. There are so many folks who have built their online businesses around it, and have entrusted us along the way. A sincere thanks to every one of you.

Below is a list of Genesis resources—known as the Ultimate Genesis Guide: